


Way Outta Town

by orphan_account



Category: Hermitcraft RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Crack Treated Seriously, Electrocution, Frequent Chapter Editing After Updates, Gen, Graphic Description, HC Gang is kinda spread out, Near Death Experiences, Not Beta Read, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Tags May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:48:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24342316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Bdubs is in prison, and death by electricity doesn’t sound so good.Neither does joining the strange man who claims to have saved him a nanosecond before he joined the deceased, but there isn’t much of a choice there.Here’s the thing - normal people don’t like cyborgs. The government, however, thinks they’re a pretty neat idea for the dirty work no one else wants to do. There’s no sane human who would willingly commit themselves to lifetime of genocide, after all. Not when they’re vastly outdone by the machine population in terms of brains and brawn.They’re grabbing his hands and shoving them deep into rivers that run red, and there’s nothing Bdubs can do except shuffle along.But he’s never been good at that, has he?
Comments: 17
Kudos: 43





	1. Comin’ Straight From the Underground

To quote Samuel Johnson, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully. What he failed to add was the fact that what the mind eventually concentrated on was the fact that it was in the very body that was about to be hanged. There simply wasn’t much you could do after that.

This had turned out to be true enough for Bdubs despite the fact that he was soon going to be electrocuted to death, who was eyeing the clock across the hall through the bars of his cell with an intensity that could potentially burn through half an inch of reinforced steel.

The seconds hand was barely visible, like a hairline crack on a screen, but it was pretty evident that it wasn’t moving fast enough.

Forget plank minutes, watching time tick by before your untimely demise would never be fast enough. At this point, the man was torn between asking for the hand to move faster and forcing it to stop for the rest of whatever existed when time didn’t.

He hears a familiar knocking sound and walks over to the iron door, peering at the cell on his right though the bars.

Keralis was a nice guy, Bdubs had to admit. For a person locked up for vandalism and destruction of public property, he was quite serene and placid when it came down to it. You know the human’s a nice one if he goes around telling new inmates that he loved their faces with a straight expression.

Today was no different. “Bubbles, I’m sorry I can’t do anything,” and he looks pained. “You are one of my good friends. I wish there was something I could do.”

Keralis was also mega rich, and before anyone shouts that this was something that should’ve been said in the beginning, the narrator doesn’t give a shit.

He wasn’t getting hanged or anything along those lines, oh no. He was going to court with his personal lawyer, and the hearing was three days from then. There was a high chance of him getting out of prison because the so-called ‘destruction’ he’d been accused of was actually a cleaning project. A sunken ship wasn’t the best to have near an industrial zone, after all.

He only shrugged because Bdubs knew that he didn’t deserve whatever help Keralis could give him, mainly because he was really a bad person.  
  
  


“It’s alright, buddy.”

Plus, there was his escape attempt.

Yes, he was waiting for his lunch. His lunch was essentially his ticket out.

The cell he was kept in was quite weird by regular standards. The walls were made of some strange kind of metal he couldn’t place, and they heated up terribly during the summers. There was no ventilation system except for a vent on the ceiling, and even that was covered with a grille attached with some nuts and bolts. The vent was big enough to allow his figure to slip right through, and the bolts in question were quite rusted and jammed.

A small flap opened up under the door to his cell just then, and a tray of food slipped through. Bdubs’s eyes shot up towards the bars, and the guard who’d given him his lunch winked through the gaps.

“Eat up, Mister. There won’t be any other time like it!”

He sounded too cheery for someone referencing an execution, but he plastered a China-approved quality smile onto his own face. “Could I get a giant ham sandwich, in that case? And some coffee, with marshmallows with a side of cheesecake?”

People got the greatest meals before their deaths back in the day. It was a rather huge disappointment when the man frowned.

“Coffee sector won’t open until seven, my man. Best I can do is more grub. That’s also only because it’s you, Mister Bdubs.”

Bdubs was known to be one of the most pleasant inmates, at least among the guards. He never got into fights. He was punctual. He didn’t take too long in the shower (since the shower was essentially sitting in a bucket full of water that felt like it had come from the River Styx) and he didn’t bug anyone. He spoke to the guards occasionally, even though he could never keep track of their names. 

Somehow, they liked him.

“If it’s me, you could delay the sentence, or stop it altogether,” he pointed out with the same plastic smile, to which the man - was this one James, or Charles? - burst into laughter.

“Good one, Mister Bdubs! I’ll leave you to your lunch now. Heaven knows the reason why the rice crackers disappear so quickly.”

He shuffled off, and Bdubs heard the door slam across the room just as a deafening silence wafted across the area. Then just a minute or two later, a few inmates began to discuss, in grueling detail, how the brain was removed from the nose of a to-be mummified dead person, and that’s when he turned back to the rather rustic tray of food.

If it could be called food, that is. It was a weird mixture of something white and grey in a small bowl, some stale biscuits and minestrone soup, with a very small cylindrical container holding the scheduled Tabasco sauce. The only remotely consumable thing was water and it was in a paper cup, so he picked it up to drink.

Bdubs wrinkled his nose at the smell as he set down the now empty cup. Unless rotten eggs with a dash of fish was your thing, this was hardly edible.

He leveled a satisfied stare at the Tabasco sauce, however. 

Bdubs looked around, to make sure no one was watching, before he dipped his index finger into the sauce, and reached above his head towards the bolts holding vents in place. They’d turned a deeper reddish-brown with his time here, and it was finally time to get rid of them.

The Tabasco usually ate right through the rust, and made the bolts loose enough to remove them. Bdubs had been at this for the last few months, and with scarce amounts of sauce he was provided, he was able to get most of the work done. 

The grille was already loose, but he needed more to yank it out without much noise. 

He slathered some more of it across the joints, before settling down and grabbing the two biscuits, frowning at the taste. Too stale, much more so than last week. They’d probably been using the same packs.

Keralis knocked on his door again. “Bubbles, are you awake?”

Bdubs knocked back before walking over to the bars. “Last I checked. What’s up?”

The man hesitated. “Good luck.”

And he realized that Keralis knew what he was about to do. There was no point in asking how, so he nodded and stared across the hall at the clock.

Fourteen hours left.

He rushed back towards the grille, walking up and down the constricted space as the sauce did its thing. The guards would be on their break for the next hour, and he had to be quick.

Sure enough, when he pulled at the grille, it popped out without much of a fight or any kind of loud-as-shit sound. 

Bdubs took a small breath, rubbing his forehead. This was it.

He set down the grille on the towel he’d strategically placed under his bed, before reaching his arms up and hoisting himself up through the gap. 

The sky was blue, and he grinned, genuine for the first time in years as elation rushed though every cell of his existence. 

He was getting out. Finally.

He climbed up, smiling like he’d seen a flower bloom in a desert. 

Then he noticed the walls.

His excitement died out like a flame left in a gale when he saw the sudden, familiar glint of triple reinforced, bullet-proof glass.

The rest of the area above the cell was decorated like the top of the roof, but the non-existent ceiling was high in the air, impossible to climb up to. The high walls were made of glass except for one, and he couldn’t help but slump when he saw the camera set on the floor focus on him. A hidden speaker system beeped to life, and the screen in front of him against the regular wall flickered to life.

“Congratulation, Bdubs!” And crap, it was the head of the police force himself, Scar. His latest obsession with wizards hadn’t gone unnoticed bu Bdubs; his purple hat, robes and strange fashion notions that went along the lines of only wearing underwear under wizard apparel was a good idea, as well as the grey beard and dropped low on his chest. His green eyes sparkled with mirth.

“You’ve finally made it! I was wondering when you would, you know, ever since you started the whole sauce thing,” and the man’s lopsided smile grew impossibly wider. “Me and the boys were getting quite frustrated. We’ve been waiting for weeks now!”

“Actually sir,” one of policemen nearby interjected, “its ‘the boys and I’.”

“Sure,” Scar said dismissively. “But the point stands. Great job, Bdubs.”

Bdubs blinked. He was sure he was missing something here. “You... knew I was going to attempt an escape?”

“Of course!” Scar looks offended. “Any self-respecting inmate would, and you are no exception. The boss does say that the prospect of freedom keeps the person’s mind busy from the inevitability that they are going to be... ahem, unalived soon. Keeps them happy, he said. It turned out he was right as ever.”

“And what about the freedom?” He tries, forcing himself to hold back the impending realization that he was really going to be dead.

“Well, it is only the prospect, my good inmate, not the freedom itself.” Scar frowns in thought. “It’s interesting, how the last few times people have attempted this turned out exactly the same way.”

“It was quite entertaining,” the second-in-charge, Grian, added in his characteristically thick accent. “I was excited every time you stood up! Although Scar does have a point - this took far too long.” His tousled, ginger hair was set back as he folded his arms, eyes narrowing as he gazed at Bdubs through their camera feed, probably.

Bdubs pastes another smile onto his own face, panic seeping in. “How about you let me go and see me run? I’m sure that will be funnier.”

The sound system is overwhelmed by the shrieks of laughter that come through it.

“You are absolutely amazing, Bdubs. However, I’m afraid I can’t do that for you. It’s nothing personal really, boss’s orders and all that,” Scar says, sounding almost regretful. “You were a fine addition to the prison. There will be no one quite like you ever again.”

He taps the glass with his knuckles, just to make sure, before sliding back into his cell, resigned. 

“Cheer up, Bdubs! It’s your last day on Earth, so you’ve got to make the most of it.” Grian calls out as he sits at the edge of his bed, head in his hands. “I’m sure Two-Times Ren will be pleased to see you.”

Yep. He was going to die in this place. This drab, stupidly grimy place with its eccentric policemen. 

Had he deserved this sentence? Sure, he’d downloaded a few less-than-legal versions of the Call of Duty games, a few albums of music and might have picked up and sold an Ender Crystal or five on the black market, but every legal adult had done that at some point. It didn’t help that GTA V tugged at the ends of his pockets and his mind, and he’d stolen the CD from a store, only to get caught. 

It was ironic, really. Stealing Grand Theft Auto and getting wasted in the process.

He didn’t deserve death by electricity, as such. 

Not for the only known crimes he’d committed, at least. 

It’s ten hours later when the first execution of the night is called out for, and a woman with shockingly red hair and a strange complexion is led out. 

“Well, it’s the night,” said Keralis as Bdubs watched. “You’re up soon Bubbles, so you will have to stay awake today.”

“What do you mean?” Bdubs thinks he probably looked confused, so the Swede/Pole rushes to explain. “Well, no one ever sees you after the sun goes down. You disappear right after the lights go out, and it’s quite odd!”

“Yeah, well,” Bdubs feels vaguely insulted at that. “There’s phantoms and stuff, you’ll see.”

“You went to bed even when I told you not to that last time.”

“You literally sat up all night counting numbers. Not just that, but you did it backwards,” Bdubs countered. “I needed my eight hours for better things than kindergarten math.”

“Bubbles,” the man says, visibly concerned, “it was New Years Eve.”

He blinked. Once. Twice.

“I had a troubled upbringing.”

“That much is quite obvious, my friend,” Keralis replied in that ridiculously calm tone of his that didn’t reveal much of what he was thinking. 

He sat around after that, trying to think of all the good things in life. However, the only thing that kept his mind preoccupied was the question - what really was life outside these walls?

Bdubs had been arrested over seven years ago, and he vaguely remembers the smell of gasoline around the place he’d lived, the burning coal. He remembers when the first cyborg had been introduced to the world, his own thoughts about the machine world turning to a murky shade of grey. He didn’t particularly like the idea of humans being fused with machines, never had.

He could only imagine what was going on in the world now. The prison never let them out, much less handed them a physical newspaper or showed them the television screen, assuming those still existed. There were only two running newspapers last he’d known of, and it wasn’t too much of a stretch to think they were replaced with something else. Plus, TV’s were overrated. Holographic TouchPod’s were the new thing when he’d been imprisoned. 

Bdubs sighs as he looks up to the ceiling. 

There wasn’t much he had left in the world, but it wasn’t like he’d had much time on it anyway. Then again, he was constantly putting himself on risk of shortening it with every green bill he rightfully stole, so there was that.

Job hazards. It was all in the description.

The rapping against his door shakes him out of his musings, and when did four hours pass away?

“Come along, Mister Bdubs! It’s time to say goodbye!”


	2. Everybody Loves to Root For a Nuisance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you haven’t noticed yet or are too lazy to scroll up a few millimeters, there’s now two Archive Warnings: Graphic Descriptions of Violence and Major Character Death.
> 
> That being said, this chapter’s heavy. There’s a description of being electrocuted, and all the procedures that take place before sitting in the chair are pretty elaborated. If that ain’t your pack of Sour Patch Kids, it’s suggested you sit this one out.
> 
> Plus, kudos to those who catch the references.

They let him talk to Keralis before he was escorted away from where the inmates were cooped up.

The man looked sad. “This is it, isn’t it Bubbles?”

He nodded at that, evaluating his position again. A failed attempt later, here he was. “About time, I’ll be honest. The dopeman’s probably tired of standin’ around an’ waitin’ for my ass to show up.”

“Hey! Look into my eyes, nothing but my eyes,” and he did, for some unknown reason. “Do not say things like that,” Keralis said with a rare inflection in his tone, “you must always assume they have forgotten about your existence. That way, you are not taken aback by the weirdness of this whole scenario.”

He thought for a moment. “That does make sense.”

“Of course it does. Now, cross your appendages and hope for the worst. I’ve heard Hell could be considered to be your life on Earth, in a way.”

“I wouldn’t be shocked to hear that.”

“That’s the spirit,” then he offers Bdubs a weak smile. “Goodbye,”

Bdubs was then led into a rather nice-looking waiting room, the kind you’d see at a clinic. There was even a mini aquarium across the room on the right of an ominous dark oak door, which probably led to where he was going to piss off to the afterlife.

They handed him a piece of paper and a used-up ballpoint pen, “For your goodbye letter, of course!” said a guard cheerfully. 

“Is someone gonna see this?” Bdubs asked, feigning interest, to which the man frowned. 

“I doubt that it will get out of the prison, Mister Bdubs, considering the current state of affairs.” The man beamed again, and it was starting to grate on his nerves. “But Grian did say to think of it as something therapeutic, you know. Somewhere you can vent about all the problems that plagued your life. Of course, you’ve had a fantastic journey! I doubt you’d need something like this. I did tell them, but...”

The guard continued rambling as Bdubs sketched out something on the paper, keeping it on his knee as he did. He folded it up into a small square before handing it back to the guard.

“Make sure to get this to Scar and Grian, yeah?” He smiled in a way that the guard would later describe as ‘faintly menacing’. “Wouldn’t want ‘em to miss out on the final chapter.”

“Er... sure thing, Mister Bdubs!”

He nodded, still smiling as the guard strolled out of the room, a stiffness to his step that definitely hadn’t been there before. 

Bdubs looked back that the fish tank, watching the lone, black catfish slither around in the water. It looks utterly lost and lonely, its visible features being the front of a poster of depression. The fish moves slowly, evidently bored and uninterested in its surroundings. It only looks up to meet Bdubs’s eyes.

“You an’ me both, buddy,” he said. He thought for moment, probably nothing about fish anatomy, before what he said next.

“Just please be happy, smile,” the fish blinks. “It forces endorphins into your body. Just force a smile, and maybe good things will happen.”

It blinks some more, as if actually considering it.

Then it promptly continues its mindless swim from one end of the rectangular tank to the other. It doesn’t look back at Bdubs.

He fixed what could be called a slight scowl at the tank. “No, you’re probably a depressed thirteen-year-old. You probably wanna listen to emo music, punch walls, and scream about how much the world hates you all while being a massive jerk to anyone who tries to help you out!”

The catfish’s whiskers twitch. That’s all.

“And I can’t even say anythin’ ta you, ‘cause that would be bullying! An’ bullying’s bad. An’... I’m getting electrocuted for doing some of that bad.”

The fish seemed to be listening to each word intently. 

Nope. No, it wasn’t. It still wasn’t looking at him while it swam around.

“You’re a grade-A asshole, you know that?”

He squinted at the name tag attached to the tank. ‘Jerry’ looks up at him as he does, even more disinterested. 

“‘Course you’re named Jerry,” he spat. “‘Course they name a catfish who can’t see out of his own damn tank Jerry.”

It took him about five entire minutes to realize that Grian had walked into the room, and had been watching his interaction with the fish with a great deal of interest. He was dressed in a plain red sweatshirt, as if dressing more casually would help relive pre-execution nerves. 

“Well,” Grian said, voice a tad more high-pitched than Bdubs remembered, “I didn’t expect something like that when I said ‘therapeutic’.”

“To each one their own,” he grumbled, to which the man nodded in agreement. “S’pose so. Although I will have you know that Jerry here is actually forty-three years old. Catfishes usually live up to sixty, if they’re lucky. And he can hear us just fine, since catfishes actually have well-developed auditory reception which allows him to, I don’t know, narrow down exactly where the sounds he hears are coming from.”

“Where’d you learn all that?” Bdubs asked, tone dripping with sarcasm. “‘Vertebrates Weekly’?”

Grian frowned. “No, not from that load of pollocks. Got this from the ‘Fisherman’s Hook’. They really have the best articles on all kinds of cod.”

“Sure, that makes a lot more sense,” he spat. “Thanks. I was dying to know that.”

“No, you’re dying for being a murderer.” Grian corrected. “Dying for wanting to know obscure facts about a random fish is the silliest thing I’ve ever heard of. Should I read your sentence for you again?”

“That won’t be necessary. That won’t be necessary at all.”

“Well, if you say so,” the man shrugged, as if he hadn’t just threatened to read out all of his crimes in front of Jerry. “Shall we proceed to the actual execution? Two-Times Ren is getting ready as we speak.”

“Could I have fourteen more minutes?” Bdubs asked, his smile resembling a bad photoshop job on the Joker. 

Grian laughed lightly and punched his shoulder. “No, you know how this stuff works! Time is of the essence. It takes about fourteen minutes for the preparation phase, so you might just get that time in hand anyway. Come along, now. I’d hate to see you get dragged across the ground for something like this considering how nice you are. I feel bad enough as it is, Bdubs, I really do.”

“So why do it?”

Another chuckle. “That’s like asking why you wake up every morning! There’s never a good reason to keep living, but you do it anyway.”

“S’not like I’ll be there to talk about that anytime later.”

“Ha! See, this is what I like. No kicking or screaming, just two spoons having a nice chat.”

Bdubs didn’t bother replying to that as he was led into the prep room, where a woman stood with a razor. 

A few minutes later, and his hair, which had been set in a faux mohawk, was now all over the ground in snippets. He ran a hand over the top of his head, suddenly thankful there weren’t any mirrors in sight. “Why do you have to do this?”

“Well,” the woman says, in an accent not too dissimilar to the one Grian had, “unless burning to death is something you prefer, this prevents your hair from catching fire and slowing down the process.”

They shaved the calf of his left leg as well, and once that was done, the woman beamed at him. “All done. Would you follow me into the next room, please?”

“Why do I need this?” He asked, when he felt the unmistakable, leathery paper feel of a diaper. 

“Oh, it’s all for hygiene and cleanliness measures! This is electricity we are talking about, after all.” 

“Uh, do I need to remove my socks?”

“If you want. They will remove it once you are seated in the electric chair later.”

“What’s that for?”

“These go on your head. They deliver the second part of the shock.”

“Ah. Nice to know.”

“Not so much.”

The room Bdubs was led into next was dimly lit. A man in a robe stood at the other end, sharpening what looked like a scalpel. Grian had entirely disappeared, and the only people he could make out the faces of was the guards dressed in camo, who were also hazy. The chair in front of him had a tall stile, almost his standing height, and the top and middle rails were quite far off. Leather buckles sat at the foot and the mid rail.

He barely heard himself get buckled in, or even the fact that the man in the robe had turned around to gaze at him in a silence that was a little uncomfortable.

The guards filed out, and as they did, the man looked up so Bdubs could see his face.

His complexion was a startling grey. Black shades sat on the bridge of his nose, completely redundant except in making the room seem like the inside of a mineshaft. There’s a glint of something metal under the robes, but he didn’t pay much attention to that since he spotted the big scythe in his hands. The small smirk he had on wasn’t helpful in the slightest.

“So,” the man says, picking up a paper from the table against the wall. “B... uh. How do you pronounce your-“

“It’s Bdubs,” he interrupted the obvious question. “Go on.”

“No, it’s custom to say the prisoner’s full name, my man. Can’t have any loose ends untied.”

Bdubs shook his head, which was a little hard with the leather buckle. “No one’s been able to pronounce it since 2009. Bdubs is the full name, trust me on this one.”

The man blinks at the paper. “What language is it in, man? I’m part African, but this is way past my scope of understanding.”

He only shrugged in response despite his restraints. 

“Alright, then,” he cleared his throat. “Welcome to your demise, Bdubs No-Last-Name-Listed. I’m known by the title Two Times Ren, but you can call me Rendog in case you need emotional support. I will be your executioner for today.”

“Rendog?”

“Yeah,” Ren grins. “Like, you know, Ren-diggity-dog! The last thing you’ll ever see, my dude.”

“Uh, okay.” Bdubs nodded. “Ren is fine.”

“Absolutely. Did you know that they called this method of death Westinghousing, after the Westinghouse alternating current equipment that was originally used to deliver the electric shocks? The New York Times apparently hated the word electrocution. They said it was pushed forward by ‘pretentious ignormuses’.” 

Rendog’s expression suddenly soured. “Thomas Edison called it dynamort. Sounded like some kind of lethal injection.” He shivered, as if the thought disgusted him. “Lethal injections! No valor at all, that execution method. It’s a good thing they allow electrocution in these parts.”

“Glad I’m here, then,” he said as sarcastically as he could, but Rendog only nodded in fierce agreement. “So am I.”

He removed one hand from his scythe to gesture around the room with a grin. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity you get the opportunity to feel. Quite literally.”

“So no scythe?”

“Oh, no. This is for effect. Some say I’m like a grim reaper, so I thought I’d be one.” Ren held up a part of his robe. “Does this make me look like a reaper? The last person in here said I look like Ghostface from that movie Scream without the mask, though I don’t know what that is.”

“That person is right,” Bdubs winced as the man swung around the scythe a little too close for comfort as he raved on about how Scream sounded like some other movie featuring a lethal injection. “You can get the mask on Amazon, I think. Nineteen forty-two is a decent price.”

“Huh. I think I’ll consider that, my dude. Now, where were we?”

“The part when you were about to let me go.”

“Nice try! I’ll admit, that was slick.” Ren’s expression turns serious. “But I’m afraid that won’t help you here. You know...” and Bdubs prepares his ears for another monologue.

“The first man ever sentenced to execution by the electric chair, his name was Joseph Chapleau. He allegedly beat his neighbor to death with a sled stake. But he later got condemned to life imprisonment instead. Pretty stupid, really. You remind me of him.” 

Bdubs felt insulted at that, he wouldn’t lie. “I don’t even own a sled stake.”

“The second person,” Ren went on, as if he hadn’t heard him, “was the first to be electrocuted. His name was William Kemmler, and he apparently killed his wife using a hatchet. An axe, of all things. Think of all the trees he could have cut with that.”

“Uh, one point for nature?”

“No!” He looked frustrated. “Why kill the wife with an axe, a hatchet of all things? He could have used a scythe. Rightfully so, they shocked him with one thousand four hundred volts of an alternating current. It was pretty tragic when it didn’t work the first time. The man in charge of the whole operation is known to have declared that it would have been better to have chopped the prisoner’s head off with an axe.”

“How much,” Bdubs asked, “are you goin’ to use to use on me?”

Ren shrugged. “Depends, my dude. The point of electrocution is not to have you burn, but to send you into a state of cardiac arrest. In theory and my personal experiences, even low currents, around seventy to seven-hundred mA usually trigger fibrillation in a human’s heart.”

“You’re gonna use 5A, then?” Bdubs questioned. “That’ll give you two thousand volts.”

The man grinned in response. “Now we’re cooking with gas! That was my plan exactly. But how did you know?”

Bdubs pointed at the wall the best he could with his hands buckled down. “You’ve written it there in bold.”

Sure enough, there was a piece of paper with all the measurements written out in a dark, thick font. Ren continued to grin as he tore it down and threw it away in the bucket near the door.

“No more spoilers for you today, buddy.” And truth be told, Bdubs hadn’t understood a word of what he’d read on that paper, anyway. What was about to happen was a mystery on its own. “Now, let us get down to business. Erm, I do have something to ask of you, if it isn’t too much.”

“Go ahead,” he said, because there wasn’t much to lose at this point.

Ren hesitated before handing him a black marker. “Would you sign the chair?”

“Why?”

“Well, it’s not everyday you must execute such a willing prisoner. Plus, I like to keep track of things. These things sell well on Ebay.”

Sure enough, there’s faint signatures all over the chair. Bdubs shrugged as he wrote out his name in the most despicable font he could think of. Ren took the marker as he stretched his arms and grinned, shades glinting ominously in the dim light.

“Alright, my man. Let’s begin.” 

They say there’s two stages to this type of execution. The first stage exists so that the person condemned is rendered unconscious. The second is the main death stage.

Bdubs heard a switch being flicked, and the lights dimmed further, flickering. For a second, he felt nothing.

A prickle of pain began along his arms and up his legs. He hissed through clenched teeth as the muscle spasms began, the tissues twisting and turning at ludicrous speeds. The only thing Bdubs could hear was the blood roaring in his ears, his own rapid, erratic breaths and- was someone screaming? He wasn’t sure, really.

He struggled against his bonds, and it was a good thing the lights were dimmed as much as they were.

The excruciating pain was one thing, and the smell of something burning was another. Now, he was suddenly aware of the fact that he was in fact screaming. It kept increasing in waves, as he kicked out desperately, screaming unintelligible things. The coarse leather cut through his skin, leaving behind gashes and streaks of red to behold.

That smell of burnt items was the last thing he registered before he passed out, head hitting the back of the chair with a thump, but his body continued spasming on the chair.

Ren sighed as he began stage two, wincing away from the charred remains that were prison garbs. The next flicker of electricity commenced.

  
  


Bdubs No-Last-Name-Listed was reported to be declared dead at 14:37 by exactly three newspapers, one of them being Vertebrates Weekly. The funeral, about a week later, was attended by only one man in a construction helmet. His body was buried in the cemetery down the road, taken down in a dark oak casket. 

Scar, the police head, has produced what looks to be a crudely drawn last set of offenses from the fugitive. Three words: a long banana. He claims to be a little confused at what this could mean.

These are the known facts. What occurred next was only known to happen by two other people. That is, if you can call them that.

We don’t refer to people from a shady government branch as merely people. These guys ascend from a different line of bastards. 

There’s a bright light across the stupidly white room that he wakes up in, and he instinctively reaches out to protect his eyes. There’s something about this situation that feels heavenly, almost like the guy with the huge eyes was right for once.

Move towards the light. Wasn’t that every story featuring the afterlife ever’s main theme?

He’s crawling across the floor now, one hand dragging himself along and one hand still covering his eyes. 

Bdubs stops when his head hits something hard, and he shouts in frustration as he rubs his head.

His haired head.

His no-longer bald head.

His eyes shoot open to meet the dusty surface of a clearly all-quartz floor, and the leg of what is obviously an office table.

A throat is cleared.

“If you’re finished with all that, here’s a chair.”

Bdubs sits up, rubs his crusty eyes and looks up to meet a bearded face. 

“Hi Bdubs.” The man is peering over the table, a strange amusement in his eyes. “The name’s Cub. Welcome to your afterlife.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was a personal challenge. Making it both light-hearted and a lump of lead at the same time - dunno if I did that right.
> 
> As always, comment down below folks. Can’t get better unless y’all tell me there’s somethin’ wrong haha.


	3. Workin’ On My Game ‘Cause It’s Time to Tax

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ‘Sup guys, here with another segment. Fell behind my current update schedule because this chapter was a pain in the ass lol, took a while to sculpt. It still isn’t even close to where I envisioned it, but eh, that’s up to you guys to decide. Comment down below, as always - whether it’s criticism or complimentary, it’s welcome.
> 
> MEGA EDIT: For those of you guys who read the last chapter the second it came out, you might notice that instead of Etho, our man Cubfan135 has made an appearance. Edits were made to the last chapter as well.

It’s a while before the words stop echoing in his mind and pounding against his cranium like giant maces.

If he didn’t know better, he’d say it was a really bad hangover. One which had clutching his head in pain and hallucinating strange men and heaven together, something he could safely say had never happened before.

He was supposedly dead, he realizes, and yet, he doesn’t feel quite translucent yet. He tries to stare through his left palm, just in case.

Nope. He couldn’t see... more white through his hand.  


That didn’t sound right.

Bdubs stands up, groggy and disoriented. His vision dots with color as he blindly gropes for the chair that had been promised, stumbling on his feet. He couldn’t see that well, but he did spot the man who had spoken earlier, watching him in silence. 

Well. You don’t see that everyday after a hangover. 

There’s something vaguely unsettling about it. He couldn’t put his finger on what that could possibly be, even as his eyes adjusted to the strange environment and he inspected his surroundings.

It’s an odd room. There are no corners or edges to differentiate the walls from the floor or the ceiling, but Bdubs could tell it was, in fact, a room and not an endlessly white space. The only things of interest were the cheery spruce tables and the two chairs, and that was saying something considering the blank slate that was the table. There was nothing on it except for an ancient computer and a few papers along with a pen. No scratches. No scruff. It was uncanny.

However, nothing was as unnerving as the man with the spotless lab coat and laced pianist’s fingers watching him intently, as if expecting him to start breakdancing. Bdubs is almost tempted to do it just to see the reaction it could get.

Nothing is said for the next few minutes. Then Cub slowly turns towards his monitor, flicking a switch underneath the table.

The PC splutters to life as Bdubs watched- and hey, was that a Dell Desktop X?

Those things were practically archeological loot at this point, he figured, eyeing it with something a lot more intense than appreciation. He didn’t think the system was still supported, but as the arduous clicking of the mouse continues through the thick fog of silence, he’s starting to wonder whether he’d get more money for destroying the damn thing and selling individual parts.

A throat is cleared, and it halts that specific train of thought instantly.

“So. Bdubs No-Last-Name-Listed.” Cub glances at him, the curiosity shining in his eyes unnerving him a bit. 

“Uh, it’s just Bdubs.”

“Yeah. That’s you, isn’t it?”

“No. You’ve got the wrong guy,” be responds, voice about as flat as the tabletop.

Cub chuckles. “You’re gonna have to try harder than that, my friend.”

Some more clicking. The room is so bright that you couldn’t see the glow of the screen even if you squinted, but it’s safe to say that it was probably working.

“How was it, by the way?”

“How was what?”

“Death. Or, uh, the twenty-four hour  trial experience.” Cub shrugs lightly, gaze never leaving the monitor screen. “It’s a little difficult to explain.”

He stares at the bearded man, asking the only question he could come up with that wasn’t about the antique computer or breakdancing. “Isn’t this The Afterlife or whatever?”

Then again, The Afterlife wasn’t said to have resembled a Matrix infinity room. But then again, that idea was put forward by religious people who hadn’t died yet and had no logically-confirmed proof.

Bdubs thought he was probably more qualified to answer that question now.

“Not the one with the capital T and A,” Cub replies in a deadpan tone that does wonders pissing him off. “This is your personal afterlife, man. Think of it as a custom edition.”

There’s only one natural question that can follow that answer. “Where’s God?”

A smirk finds its way onto Cub’s face. “That,” he gestures towards Bdubs, “is exactly what I mean. God is a fickle guy. We don’t associate ourselves with him. Plus, he’s got his own Afterlife gig up in the sky for when someone actually dies.” He glares at the screen just then, aggressively clicking his mouse. “Dang it.”

He blinks. “So I’m not dead?”

“Oh no. You’re technically dead. Bdubs No-Last-Name-Listed is confirmed to be dead. Six feet deep under the ground, apparently. But you’re here.”

“So I’m dead.”

“Bdubs is.”

“You keep saying that, and then you say I’m not dead.”

“You’re not.”

“So who’s dead, then?”

“Bdubs.”

“But that’s me!”

“Not anymore, man. Not anymore.” Cub still doesn’t look away from his screen. 

Bdubs splutters in indignation. “Ah- I- how? Why?” He slams his hands on the table. “What the hell do you mean by that?” 

He looks down under his chair after that, just to make sure that what he’s sitting on isn’t suddenly falling through a hidden trapdoor in the ground towards his eternal torment. You could never be too sure when it came to eccentric beings still using outdated hardware with a straight face.

Cub sits back in his chair, stretching his arms and went on to pretend he hadn’t heard the question. “Would you like to hear the story of my magic crystals, Not-Bdubs?”

“How does that answer anything?” he says, voice getting slightly louder.

“Nah man. It’s the crystals. It’s all about the crystals.” Cub almost looks a little irked as he places down a grey shulker box on the table, gesturing for Bdubs to ruffle through the contents. “These things have been- and that’s putting it lightly - messing a lot of things up. Such as the natural course of death. Let me tell you man, it’s not good. It’s not good.”

And Bdubs has never heard of something like this before. Then again, he was presumably dead and in prison for years. The world could figure out complex magic in a matter of years, apparently, and still fail at understanding basic physics and speech.

“I’m not touching the shit,” he snaps. But his curiosity wins over and he leans over to take a peek into the shulker box.

“What are are you on about? It’s just a few renamed stained glass shards-“

“Ah- see, let me explain, alright.” Cub hesitates, but he’s still staring the screen as he speaks. It’s pretty annoying, but Bdubs finds he doesn’t like the idea of Cub staring at him as he rambled on. He fixes his own gaze into the papers on the table, finding them to be blank as well.

“Why would you keep there here?”

“Oh, that’s just for effect. Uh, moving on...” a cough.

“So I met a wizard in a jungle, and he gave me these crystals. Said they had magic properties and all that. Now, I wouldn’t have just taken them if, y’know, if I didn’t know this wizard first-hand. I took ‘em that day and these crystals- well, I kept them in the office for a while, but they grew up.” He makes a sound that vaguely resembles an explosion. “They were huge, man, huge. I had to rebuild the whole office and these crystals, they have weird effects on people in close proximity.”

“That’s crazy,” Bdubs says, in a way that makes it clear how much he’s listening.

Look, being nice and happy and friendly was an errand, and he’d done his fair share of that in prison. Being an asshole was first nature for Bdubs. The second was wishing that he’d thought things through.

Cub raises an eyebrow at him as he continues. “So yeah, the crystals are magical. You’re here because of these crystals.” He opens the shulker box, handling a pink glass shard like it was an explosive. 

“This, my friend, is one Respawn Magical Crystal. And uh,” he places it on the table. “This is what brought you back to life. Or so we think.”

The crystal gleams in the white light, and suddenly, he doesn’t want to look at it anymore. 

“This crystal makes you respawn, or revert back to your original state after death,” Cub explains, turning back to his monitor. “We don’t really know the specifics yet, but you’re the first person to use one of this type of crystal and come out unscathed.”

“Bet those reports you’re readin’ say a lot more than that.”

“Huh?”

Bdubs points at the monitor. Cub chuckles dryly. 

“No, no, I’m not reading those stupid three hundred and ninety six pages of a report, dude. I’m playing Solitaire.” He smirks at his screen. “Gotcha. Pay up.”

“Who are ya, anyway?” Bdubs questions. “You keep sayin’ ‘we’ like it’s a cult or somethin’.”

“We are Sector ConCorp. In truth, the world right now,” a sharp intake of air. “It ain’t nice. It’s not ideal. There’s too many criminals, with all the advancements in tech. Too many gangs, too much smuggling, if you get my meaning. You probably don’t,” he adds as an afterthought. “The prison you were in isn’t known for information exchange. It kinda isolates you from it, so coming back and settling back in the city in the event of an escape gives you away almost immediately to the authorities.”

“No shit,” he shoots back, but it’s distracted. What does he mean by ‘advancements in tech’?

“You can’t have a world that functions like that. Crime can’t become the basis for an empire, much less a machine-based one, because once it does, there’s no going back. Once it officially begins, everyone gets in on the business, and that’s the last thing anyone wants. That’s where we come in. Mostly.” Cub shrugs as he adjusts his pale green tie that definitely hadn’t been there before. “As much as I love GTA V, it’s not an ideal lifestyle for everyone.”

“Oh, absolutely.” He agrees to this because if everyone was a thief, it would’ve harder to trick and take, and considering that this was his usual way of life, that wasn’t ideal either. “What’s this gotta do with me?”

Cub blinks, looking up from his game. “They need to be eliminated,” he continues.

He turns back to Bdubs, switching off the monitor and opening a drawer, searching for something. He emerges again with a few sheets of paper which this time, had something printed on it. Bdubs eyes the papers with a wariness sharp enough to prick a rubber balloon. 

“And here’s the paperwork you have to sign.”

“What?”

Cub hands him the papers, before sitting back in his chair again. “Do you know who the Xenith Mercs are?”

Bdubs racks his brain for anything of the sort. “Never heard of them.”

“Alright, alright. Not surprised. Your prison was never the most advanced place on the planet. Your buddy Scar claims that newspapers do nothing but talk about the time he used to lick diamonds, and discontinued the prison subscription for good a couple of years ago, if I remember correctly. Plus, Xenith isn’t exactly something that pops up in a regular paper either.”

“Licking diamonds.” Scar seemed like the type, he realizes with a jolt.

“Yeah. So Xenith is a collection of government-appointed mercenaries. The only difference between a regular mercenary and a Xenith mercenary is that one works in a group with other mercs to achieve a common goal - that is, rid the country of all the rampant crime and stuff.”

Bdubs ponders that statement, careful in ways that weren’t expected at all. “You’re saying that you’re sending them out to die, and not giving them any health insurance.”

“They don’t need that,” Cub says. “They’re all well-trained professionals. Except you, now.”

Bdubs scoffs, pushing his chair away from the table. “What the hell are you trying to say?”

“I’m saying, you have a choice here. You were brought back to life, or respawned for the reason that we felt you were capable of joining their ranks. You have experience in the criminal circle and are not a very well known fugitive either, given your skills of evasion.”

That was partly true. Bdubs wasn’t particular a memorable person. That was before you knew his name, of course, but if you were to look across a street, he’d never stick out. He was about average height, with unmemorable features. When people described him, they didn’t really describe him. He was either tanned or Caucasian. Had brown eyes or black eyes. Had a faux-mohawk or a fade mohawk. Had a temper or was very chill. Was ripped or had never seen a dumbbell. 

Bdubs had used this to his advantage, crafting all sorts of identities for all sorts of illegal exploits. It made getting away very easy. 

He should’ve known a shady branch of the government kept tabs on him. ‘Course they did. 

“You can either join the Xenith Mercs,” Cub went on, “or walk out of that door right now.”

And sure enough, Bdubs turns to find a rather normal oak door, a small rectangle of brown in the endless white. A guard stands next to it, dressed in black Kevlar. An enchanted iron sword sits in the sheath on his right hip. He doesn’t doubt that the man is also wearing an iron chest plate under the black garbs. 

“I can walk out? Just like that?” 

Cub nods. “Yeah, man. Knock yourself out.”

He files that under ‘ludicrously suspicious.’

There’s something in the way it is said that has Bdubs’s eyes narrow as he stands up and stalks towards the door, taking long deliberate steps. He looks up at the guard as his fingers curl around the door handle, but the man stares straight ahead, doing nothing to stop him.

He tightens his grip and pushes the door open by a third.

It’s a good thing he hadn’t taken a step forward, because as he looks down, he wavers for a second. 

It’s an inky blackness that is spread all around like a thick fog that Bdubs sees next, standing at the edge of the doorway. It’s a stark contrast to the white room he is in, and he decides it worth testing.

Bdubs walks over to the table and grabs the black pen, before walking back to the edge and proceeding to throw it into the darkness that looked like the Void.

“Hey!” A voice hisses next to him as he turns towards the dark, listening for a sound. “That was my pen!” The guard stomps his foot as Bdubs ignores him, continuing to listen.

It’s only five minutes later that he hears a dull click.

He shuffles back to his chair and sits down.

“For the record, I have no idea about this shit and no training whatsoever,” he declares, to which Cub shakes his head. “Think of it like this, alright man? Think of it like this. You’ll never have known if you were good at this if we hadn’t saved you.”

“But-“

“So. You’re still here.” The man grins. “Knew you had it in ya.”

Bdubs takes the papers, and then looks for a pen.

“Serves you right,” the guard mumbles, as Cub denies having another.

“But I have a pencil,” he amends. “Woulda helped if you didn’t throw the pen into the void, but luckily enough I own a photocopier.”

The guard mutters some more curses, as Bdubs signs the papers.

”No, you can’t write down your name as Bdubs,” Cub points at where he’s signed his name. “You’re going back into the world. Using the name of a publicly-confirmed dead criminal isn’t a good idea.” 

“Hey, just remember,” he says to Cub, snapping the pencil in half once he’s done for effect. “Ya made a fraud, a cheat, a thief and the worst scum of the streets a mercenary. At least, that’s what they wrote in my sentence.”

“Ah, so you’re agreeing with me. You’ll do good, man.” And Cub grins some more as he switches on his monitor to play more Solitaire, probably.

“Yeah, if I don’t die. Again.”

Strangely enough, it felt quite natural to say now.

Cub is sorting his papers when the guard approaches him, hesitant.

“Can I ask you something?”

The man looks up, gaze as sharp as ever. “Yeah, sure.”

“Well, it’s just,” the man hesitates some more. “How did you know he was going to accept the deal?”

Cub doesn’t answer for a couple of seconds as he places the papers back into his drawer. 

“Character. It’s all in the character.” He looks up at the guard, smirking. “You gotta read between the lines. And that, my friend, is also how I knew that he was going to throw your pen into the Void.”

“It was a perfectly fine one,” the guard grumbled as he chuckles. “Come on,” and he stacks a few glossy dark purple, almost black blocks on top of one another, grabbing an enchanted flint and steel from his inventory. As he sets fire to a block, there’s a crackle, and the portal flickers to life.

“You have to take our newest mercenary to the barracks in an hour, huh?”   
  
  


He looks back at the signed papers, just as the guard turns to walk through the purple mist.

_Signature:_

_BDOUBLEO100_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As far as update schedules go, I’m gonna be going with weekly updates, Thursday’s to be exact. As Wels puts it so well, there’s only so much you can do before you burn out and heh, don’t want a repeat of that anytime soon.

**Author's Note:**

> Aight, I’ve got no idea what I’m doin’ with this shit lol. This entire prison premise was borrowed from Terry Pratchett’s Going Postal, but that’s the only thing that’s comin’ from there. Nah, I haven’t plagiarized it entirely. Just took the idea and expanded on it using HC.
> 
> Uh, then it gets cyber. I’m writing this on the fly and teachers don’t understand how school is supposed to work, so updates will be slow as hell. 
> 
> Yeah, that’s all that’s important. Comment and let me know if you wanna see more of this kinda thing. I’m not good with long stories, but this was somethin’ long overdue from my side. 
> 
> Peace.


End file.
